Thirty-two-year-old mixed blood John Strobaw, known to the Sioux as Medicine Hair, returns to his Turtle Crick Farm after a six-year exile on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Grief-stricken at the loss of his mate and lover Matthew Brand, known as Shambling Bear, at the Battle of Wounded Knee, he struggles to become a farmer again while fighting an internal battle to let go of the past and face his future. Will that future be with his best friend Winter Bird or with Pretty Face, an outrageous flirt who hasn’t yet decided who he is?<br><br>But before he can come to grips with this, John faces several battles. Will his former friends and neighbors accept him now the Indian War has come to an end? Can John forgive those same friends and neighbors after the murderous ambush of the Sioux by the 7th Cavalry at Wounded Knee? Or survive the hostility of an Indian-hating sheriff named Charles Landreth and protect himself against the mindless fear and loathing for Two Spirits, men who love men?

Wastelakapi…Beloved

“Peach Blossom died of the lung sickness a fortnight ago, but we weren’t able to get word to him until just recently,” Fox said.


I had told my friends of my words to the newspaperman before leaving Yanube City. They apparently thought on the matter and decided to fit illusion to fact.


Price looked down at me from his cavalry horse. “Why didn’t you say so, man?”


I met his eyes and saw no hostility. Confusion perhaps, but no ill intent. “It was a private matter.” I paused for a moment. “What brings you and a mounted troop to Rivers Bend?”


I didn’t attempt to hide my surprise. “Murder? Whose murder?”


“Two of my men and a…young lady. A civilian.”


“Found them this morning when they didn’t return to quarters last night. They’d all been stabbed to death. The…ah, young lady had been violated.”


“By the soldiers or the killers?” Bird asked.


“Likely both,” the colonel admitted.


Chapter 79